A crushing defeat in Lithuania, there is a mathematical chance for Hungary to participate in the World Cup

The Hungarian men’s basketball team lost in Lithuania on Thursday in the fifth round of the World Cup qualifying series, thereby significantly reducing its chances of participating in the World Cup, which will be decided at the end of the qualification on Sunday.

The home team could not count on, among other things, the NBA Jonas Valanciunasra and Domantas Sabonisraand the Hungarians also missed him due to his club commitments Adam Hanga, Allen Rosco and Marko Filipovity injured, Dávid Vojvoda got into a legal and financial dispute with his former agent, so the international association suspended his right to play, and Zoltán Perl fell ill.

We had to wait three and a half minutes for the first Hungarian basket in Thursday’s battle, but it was naturalized Mikael Hopkins his triple marked the lead, as the home team had scored only one double up to that point. Benke Szilárd scored the guests’ fourth three-pointer, the second quarter started at 14-16. The Lithuanians led again at 20-18, then trailed by seven points, and although the Hungarians fought hard, the score was 40-31 at the break, reports MTI.

After the turnover, the game was practically decided, Kazys Maksvytis’ team scattered triples, rebounded well, and in the 30th minute it was already 63-45 on the scoreboard. In the remaining time, there were no more surprises, the Lithuanians won confidently.

The Hungarians’ World Cup hopes depended on the Bosnian-Montenegro match that started later, and since the Hungarians defeated Montenegro in Tuzla, the roster of the qualifying teams will be revealed in the last round on Sunday. The Ivkovics crew will then have to beat the Bosnians in Szombathely by the biggest possible margin, while hoping that Montenegro will lose to the host Czechs at home. In this case, the best-of-three tiebreaker will travel as group third to the World Cup from August 25 to September 10, hosted by the Philippines, Indonesia and Japan.